money

A lot of business owners, especially with a bricks and mortar business like to pretend that the Internet isn’t happening. They think that if they ignore it and put their head in the proverbial sand, that it will go away.

Sorry, but it is time to take their heads out of the sand and face reality. It isn’t going anywhere. The Internet is here to stay. It is like a juggernaut that is thundering along, gaining more and more momentum and your customers are moving with it.

Right now, just having a website is not enough anymore. It is vital that your business has a mobile friendly version.

Your customers are not going to wait until you do have one created. If they can’t see your site properly (if at all) on their smartphones they will spend their money somewhere else…your competition.

This is not scaremongering. The statistics all around are warning us what is happening right now. 51% of the mobile subscribers in the UK own a Smartphone and 49% of the mobile subscribers in the United States. They are eager to use your services. 9 out of 10 mobile searches that they make lead to action, over half leading to purchase.

The numbers are growing. 9 out 10 phones now sold are Smartphone’s. In the first quarter of 2012 alone, almost 145 million smartphones were sold. By the end of 2012, it has been estimated that more smartphones will be sold than PCs, with estimated sales of 657 million smartphones sold to consumers. As an experiment, ask your friends and family what kind of phone they have. If they don’t have a Smartphone at the moment, no doubt they will tell you that they will be getting one soon.

Smartphones are an important part of your customer’s lives. They are addicted to them. They are using them for Twitter posts, updating their Facebook status and for shopping online.

If you provide a product or service that they want, they will expect to be able to see your website on their phone.

If your website content is not easy to read on a mobile phone, you are in trouble because most mobile users will simply leave your site and take their business elsewhere.

So even if you don’t think that you need a mobile version of your website, you will actually be doing your business a lot of harm by ignoring the statistics and your customer’s needs. Every day that you don’t have a mobile web site you will be losing customers – Customers with money to spend looking for your product or services.

Whether you are a dentist, a local retailer, a chiropractor, a florist or a landscape gardener, you can reach all of your clients more effectively and easier by having a mobile web site.

Having a mobile website will future-proof your business by opening the doors to literally hundreds of new and creative ways to drive traffic to your site. For example QR (quick response) codes will allow you to create unlimited marketing campaigns that will drive potential customers to specific mobile friendly landing pages with calls to action that work (see page 9 for more information about QR codes)

Recent figures show that 50% of Smartphone uses have scanned a QR code and 18% of them purchased after a result. That is 18% extra customers that you would not have got without your mobile marketing platform. Can you see the potential for your business?

What some business owners forget is that it is not your customer’s job to remember that you are in business. You need to remind them constantly that you are there.

Using the right tools and resources is vital. We see some businesses owners attempting to draw attention to their business by throwing away good money on large newspaper ads, the Yellow Pages and flyers.

Newspapers and the Yellow pages are a dying business model and in most cases it is a waste of time putting a one-time advertisement in them. Flyers are expensive and have only reach a limited demographic.

Mobile marketing is the most effective way of keeping in contact with your current and potential customers that may have forgotten you or not known that you were there.

We would advise any business considering using mobile marketing to reach potentially millions more customers to talk to an expert on how they can employ traffic generating marketing strategies and turbo-charge their business.

Having a mobile friendly site will not only impress your clients but will set you well apart from your competition who still have their heads in the sand and are refusing to acknowledge that times are moving at such a terrific pace.

You will find our contact details on page 3. Why not take a few minutes to contact us for a no obligation chat and we will gladly advise you on how you can reach even more customers by providing the type of content and user experience that your customers expect using their smartphones.

I guess youtube is ready to try and start making money… They have a new feature that’s sponsored videos.Â Right now this represents a fantastic opportunity. It’s PayPerClick, meaning you only pay when someone clicks to view your video.

The reason this is exciting is because it’s an auction kind of system,Â (the more you pay the higher you are on the list of advertisers), but there aren’t a lot of advertisers on it yet. This is a huge advantage for bidding on keywords. I was able to get keywords like build a website for 10 cents, and actually show up number one for that search. This hasn’t been the case in any other ppc search engine for about 5 + years.